The flamboyant developer and reality TV star said Tuesday he no longer wants to construct the nation's tallest building in Chicago.

Last month, Trump caved in to Mayor Richard Daley's demand that he keep a decorative spire atop his Chicago tower. Trump then set his sights on an even taller spire, one that might make his building top Sears Tower as the nation's tallest. Instead, Trump said Tuesday that he would retain the spire's previous height, making his tower about 90 feet shorter than the 1,450-foot-tall Sears.

The reasons: Plans for the extended spire looked awkward, Trump said. And some people who have bought units in the 92-story hotel and condominium tower expressed concern about living in the building, apparently because its greater height could make it a terrorist target.

"I don't want to change the profile of the building, both physically or psychologically," Trump said in a telephone interview from his New York City office. "What difference does it make? [The record] isn't what it used to be."

Asked if that means he is scared of terrorism, Trump replied: "I'm never scared."

But he acknowledged that after the news hit the front pages that he might construct the nation's tallest building, his staff called 10 people who have bought units in the building, formally known as Trump International Hotel & Tower Chicago. Three, he said, preferred that the building's height remain lower than Sears'.

"That's a pretty good percentage--30 percent," he said. "That, carried forward, would make 30 percent of the people less happy."

Trump reports he has sold about 65 percent of the units in the skyscraper, now under construction on the riverfront Wabash Avenue site formerly occupied by the squat, seven-story Chicago Sun-Times Building. With 35 percent of the units left to sell, Trump made the right choice, one Chicago real estate developer said.

"I certainly think there are buyers out there at the high-end who would prefer not being in ... a building that draws attention to itself for unnecessary reasons," said Tom Weeks, president of LR Development, which has developed such high-profile luxury skyscrapers as the Park Tower at 800 N. Michigan Ave.

Not building the extended spire will save him about $1.5 million dollars in construction costs, Trump said.

The Daley administration had welcomed Trump's desire to shoot for having the nation's tallest building, saying it would be "amenable" to such a plan. But Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), who represents the ward where the skyscraper is being built, threatened to file an ordinance blocking the tower if Trump sought "administrative changes" to the project, such as altering the height.

Tuesday's development was the latest switch in a skyline drama that has had more twists and turns than Trump's reality TV show, "The Apprentice."

Trump originally planned a 2,000-foot tower, but scaled it back to a blocky 78-story high-rise after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Last year, he appeared satisfied to have a sleek tower of 1,125 feet, two feet shorter than the John Hancock Center, which would have made Trump's tower the city's fourth-tallest building. After no one lined up to buy antenna space atop the building, Trump decided last year to ditch the spire.

But Daley urged the developer to put it back. And last month, when the Daley-Trump face-off was revealed, Trump's architects, the Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, said the spire would reach to a height of 1,360 feet, or 235 feet taller than the building's roof.

Topping Sears, as City Hall suggested the developer might do two weeks ago, would have meant extending the spire at least 326 feet above the roof.

But those extensions made the spire "a little bit gangly" and "very convoluted," Trump said.

Stressing that he has sold more than $600 million of units in the building, Trump said, "I am very superstitious about changing things that are very successful."

The spire, he said, would remain at the "original height," though it is "more beautiful" now than when it was largely a structural feature designed to hold up an antenna. A 1,360-tower would be Chicago's second tallest building, shorter than Sears, but taller than the Hancock and the 1,136-foot Aon Center.

Architects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill could not be reached for comment.

Communications antennas do not count in a building's overall height, according to the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, the international arbiter of height rules. The council counts decorative spires as part of a building's height, however. The world's tallest building, Taipei 101 in Taiwan, is 1,667 feet tall.